FIG. 1 illustrates the electrical block diagram of the conventional lamp pumped laser. The lamp pumped laser is composed of high-voltage pulse forming unit for triggering of lamp and a power supply for supplying electrical power to the lamp after the triggering.
As to the method of supplying electrical power, a DC current from a DC power supply is supplied in the case of a continuous wave laser, on the other hand, in the case of a pulse laser, a pulsed current having the same pattern as the pulsed laser output is supplied from a pulse mode power supply which is designed to supply high peak current for short period.
Up to the present, the continuous wave laser and the pulse laser have been applied in the different fields utilizing the merits of each one. Then, in an attempt to combine the merits of continuous wave and pulse lasers, the output of continuous wave laser has been modulated by modulating the input current to the lamp. However, the maximum peak power of the modulated continuous wave laser is limited by the power handling capacity of modulated power supply and it is at best 2 to 3 times the maximum average output power of continuous wave laser itself.